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How to Teach the Silent E Rule (or Magic E) to your students
Whether you call it VCE, Magic E, or Silent E rule, it’s a phonics rule that makes a huge impact on decoding. It opens up SO many more words to decode for students used to reading simple CVC words. It’s also my favorite phonics rule to teach! In this post, I’ll explain what the Silent…
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How to Teach Digraphs: 8 Ways to Make it Fun!
I love cheese and I love salsa both on their own. Yum, yum, yum. BUT… when you put them together and make queso, it’s a match made in heaven! The cheese and the salsa come together to make something even better together than they are on their own! That reminds me of digraphs! You take…
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14 Fun and Engaging Phonics Activities for Young Learners (Part 2)
This is part 2 in a two-part series. To find the first seven activities, check out:14 FUN AND ENGAGING PHONICS ACTIVITIES FOR YOUNG LEARNERS (PART 1)! In my last post, I shared with you seven fun and engaging phonics activities for young learners. Well, today, I’ve got seven more activities to share with you! We…
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14 Fun and Engaging Phonics Activities for Young Learners (Part 1)
Ahhhh phonics. One of the keys to helping our young learners read is understanding phonics. The National Reading Panel lists five key concepts at the core of early literacy and reading instruction: And there’s phonics… right at the top! Since phonics is so important to learning to read, it’s also important to make phonics fun!…
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3 Steps to Incorporate Writing in Reading Lessons with Small Groups
Small group reading is such a HUGE part of literacy instruction. I often hear from teachers who are wondering what’s best to do in these small groups after they’ve read the text. My answer… reinforce phonics skills with writing! Reading and writing go hand in hand. Incorporating writing into your reading lessons reinforces these important skills!…
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13 Picture Books for Teaching Phonological Awareness and Phonics
Using read-alouds to practice phonological awareness activities is a great way to motivate your little learners while exposing them to lots of important skills. Here are some great picture books for teaching phonological awareness and phonics. I also added ideas for activities to do with most books! *You can click on any title to purchase…
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Phonological Awareness Activities and Games to Engage Your Students
“C-a-t. . . . MAP!” Ever have students who do that? Even when students know letter sounds, they may still have trouble reading because they don’t blend the sounds correctly. The likely cause is a lack of phonological or phonemic awareness. Phonological, Phonemic: What’s the Difference? First things first, phonological awareness is the ability to…
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Phonics-Based Sight Word Activities
For years, kids have been taught to memorize high-frequency sight words because they don’t follow phonics rules. I’m guilty of having done this, but changed my practices and learned how to really make sight words stick, using phonics. Now that we know that kids need to learn words by orthographically mapping them out (learn the…
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Tricks for Teaching Syllable Types and Division
Do your students give up when they approach a long word? Even if it’s a word they can most likely decode, like rabbit or muffin, some kids get overwhelmed by word length and don’t even try. If they’re not taught how to decode these words, they may even start guessing rather than trying. Of course,…